1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses, information processing methods, recording media, and programs, and more particularly relates to an information processing apparatus, an information processing method, a recording medium, and a program suitable for use in reading electronic books (hereinafter referred to as e-books).
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, publishing has been done using paper as a primary medium, such as books, newspaper, and magazines. Recently, publishing using media other than paper, namely, electronic publishing (hereinafter referred to as e-publishing), has become widespread as computers have advanced, the use thereof has been expanded, and the network infrastructure has been developed.
In electronic publications (hereinafter referred to as e-publications) or in e-books, books that used to be printed on paper and published are digitized. Digital data includes text, images, audio data, and video data. A user can download an e-book from a predetermined web server through the Internet and store the downloaded e-book in a predetermined storage medium, a personal computer, or a predetermined player. Alternatively, the user can purchase, for example, a CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read Only Memory) that has recorded therein beforehand an e-book, thus allowing the user to read the e-book. The user can use a PC or a predetermined player in which e-book data is recorded or a recording medium having e-book data recorded therein is loaded to play the e-book.
In e-books, a link is placed at a predetermined word. When the user selects the link, the display screen jumps to a related portion of the same file, or alternatively, another file for another related book is opened and displayed on the display screen.
In e-books downloaded through the Internet or distributed using recording media, when a revised version is put on sale, the entire data for the revised version needs to be downloaded or a recording medium having the revised version recorded therein needs to be purchased.
Although technology has been developed to display predetermined data for another file when a link included in a file is selected, thus allowing a user to reference a plurality of related books, no technology has been developed to simultaneously display all pieces of related information on one page.
In other words, technology related to e-publication is based on replacing the paper medium by the electronic medium, in which searching and linking technology is used. Therefore, although e-publication uses digital data, the advantages of digital data are not fully utilized.